CODING THE SACRED IN THE SECULAR FRAME: CINEMATIC SEMIOSIS AND THE INTEGRATION OF LUO FOLKLORE IN SOUL BOY AND ANYANGO AND THE OGRE

Abstract

Kenyan cinema has increasingly turned to indigenous oral traditions as a source for its narrative material. However, even with this huge step, the cinematic mechanisms by which folklore is translated from oral to audio-visual form remain understudied. This paper examines how two Kenyan fiction films, Soul Boy (Essuman, 2010) and Anyango and the Ogre (Voline, 2023), use cinematography, sound design, and mise-en-scène to integrate Luo folkloric material into contemporary narratives. Drawing on Christian Metz’s semiology of the cinematic code, the paper distinguishes codes intrinsic to the cinematic apparatus from non-specific codes borrowed from oral performance, cultural iconography, and social practice. The two films pursue divergent semiological strategies: Soul Boy stages the mythological as an intrusion into an otherwise realist urban register, while Anyango and the Ogre constructs two coexisting and parallel narrative planes that allow contemporary and folkloric worlds to operate alongside one another. The latter film thus establishes a contemporary narrative frame alongside an embedded folktale, with the two planes converging both structurally and ideologically. The paper argues that the divergence between the two Kenyan films represents distinct models for how African cinema mediates between folklore, oral culture, and the audio-visual form.